


No Pain, No Peace

by Bibliotecaria_D



Series: (D)Alliances [2]
Category: Transformers Generation One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-03
Updated: 2011-10-03
Packaged: 2017-10-24 06:49:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/260333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bibliotecaria_D/pseuds/Bibliotecaria_D
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodimus Prime, and two approaches to a relationship.</p><p><i>”Rodimus Prime/Galvatron: love hurts.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	No Pain, No Peace

[* * * * *]

 **Title:** No Pain, No Peace  
 **Warning:** Suggestion of love conquering all, sado-masochism style. Serious subjects and a distinct lack of taking them seriously.  
 **Rating:** G  
 **Continuity:** G1, Season 3  
 **Characters:** First Aid, Rodimus Prime, Autobot ensemble  
 **Disclaimer:** The theatre doesn’t own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.  
 **Motivation (Prompt):** Comment Party Prompt - _”Rodimus Prime/Galvatron: love hurts.”_

[* * * * *]

“Wait, wait. Go back. What exactly are you saying?” Rodimus Prime asked, hesitating over the words as if he didn’t really want to know.

First Aid missed Prowl at that moment. The dead Autobot SiC had been able to take in the facts without repeating words nobody wanted to dwell on, and his plans had whirred onward in precise — if somewhat ruthless -- calculations from the initial briefing through later, more detailed reports. Facts were information, and Prowl had processed them. Rodimus Prime, although he was admirable in many ways, had a tendency to blank out entire minutes of conversations if the content were boring and/or startling. Plus, he didn’t do methodological planning so much as emotional fixation and vast, intuitive leaps.

As Autobot City’s Chief Medical Officer launched into a recap of his words, his wistful longing for Prowl’s cool logic evaporated. Prowl really wouldn’t have been much use against Galvatron, after all. Galvatron had very little method to his madness. Maybe the Matrix had known what it was about, choosing Hot Rod as Galvatron’s Autobot foil.

“Unicron reformatting seemed chaotic,” First Aid explained, bringing up a cut-away scan of Galvatron on the wall screen, “but it didn’t make sense to create a warrior with no sense to his systems. It’s taken me months since the Constructicons’ medical scanfiles were hacked, but I think I’ve managed to map out the reasoning behind his construction.” His visor dipped in the middle in his version of a mild frown. “I had to resort to Hook and Scrapper’s notes to support my theory, although Bonecrusher’s contributions apparently were the main reason for their own exploration of the Unicronians’ designs. We’ve basically been fighting a complete unknown.”

“Okay.” Rodimus Prime gave the rest of the briefing group a slightly blank look, which they returned. Perhaps First Aid’s memory of Prowl was bathed in the light of nostalgia; nobody else seemed to be processing the facts, either. “Okay. I’m following you so far. We always knew Unicron made Galvatron weird, and then there was the whole crazier than a batty squirrel thing. Can’t predict crazy,” the Prime added a bit wryly, and the Autobots chuckled. The idea of Galvatron being unknown didn’t surprise anyone, as they’d assumed essential bits of his mind had melted into insanity on Charr.

First Aid nodded, but then he shook his head after a pause. “Yes, and no.” He zoomed in on the cut-away, focusing on just one arm until it filled the whole wall. The others looked slightly intimidated by the complicated diagram, or possibly because it was Galvatron’s cannon arm. “We’ve been assuming something we shouldn’t: that eventually the Decepticons would see there was no point to the war anymore. But look at this.” A pointer on the screen opened another window and blew up the scan even further while they looked on obediently. The helpless light of incomprehension filled their optics, and First Aid dug for words to explain this to them. “He’s built on a separate set of premises. We’re built for multiple functions and transformations. We adapt. It’s who and what we are, dating back to the days when a root mode had transformable **parts** , even if our bodies didn’t completely shift. We were never meant to stay static, in one form or even one alternate mode. Stay in one alternate mode too long, and it integrates into your root mode and primary functions.”

Rodimus Prime had a polite, faintly desperate smile plastered on his face. The other Autobots were glancing at each other. They understood that First Aid was getting worked up and more than a little despairing over Galvatron’s design, but not one of them understood _why_.

He pointed at his own head and put it as bluntly as he could. “Alternate transformations, however temporarily we scan and transform into them, tamper with our minds. Most of the time, that’s a good thing. We adapt to our surroundings, and the addition of altmode information into our programming speeds reaction time. Often, it’s a key method for understanding new situations. If we don’t continue to change, however, that additional information gets saved to archival data. Keep the archival files tagged without updating long enough, and they’ll be permanently integrated into our core programming as-is. That altmode is no longer an altmode; it’s another rootmode. In order to change transformations again, you’d actually have to be rebuilt to add on another alternate form.”

The smallest hint of understanding began to dawn across the table. Wonder and a tiny wave of fear filled their faces, along with questions the other Autobots couldn’t quite put into words yet. First Aid nodded.

“Galvatron has no ability to change. Ever. Look at his arm.” He gestured at the cut-away windows on the screen, and this time everyone looked with intense interest. “There is no altmode structure. It’s all rootmode. It’s incorporated into his cannon form, right down to the smallest circulatory system. We’ve been fighting someone we mistakenly thought could comprehend more than a life of war, when he’s not capable of knowing anything else.”

That took a moment to fully run through to the conclusion he needed them to reach. “You’re saying that Galvatron is built for war,” Rodimus Prime said, not hesitating but reluctant. “That’s not new. I mean, he’s a warrior — “

“No, I’m not saying he’s a warbuild. A lot of the Autobots rebuilt during the war are now warbuilds. I mean that there’s an inherent disassociation between living and fighting that Unicron designed at the component level into his heralds. Galvatron’s not a warbuild, because that implies a dichotomy of thought behind his build where the idea of war and not-war exists. The way he’s built, he **is** war.” First Aid made a helpless motion with his hand. Understanding this had shaken the Constructicons to the point where, he suspected, they’d _let_ the Autobots hack their files. Coming to understand this himself had left him trembling in the arms of his fellow Protectobots.

There was civil war, and then there was destroying the universe because Unicron had left no other option. What kind of twisted universe had the Chaos Bringer wanted to create? A universe where peace was never a possibility; where creation didn’t exist, only destruction. A universe where hate and rage couldn’t relent, indeed couldn’t be identified, because there was no other emotional state to contrast them to. Chaos, panic, and the consumption of everything until the only thing left in the universe was the most vicious survivor, and then First Aid could only imagine how someone with this kind of warped body and mind would turn on himself.

“Warbuilds can be given new altmodes and readapted to life without war. Galvatron can’t even think about that. I don’t mean he won’t,” First Aid looked to the cut-away, “I mean he physically **can’t**. Even his neurological pathways inhibit it.”

There was silence at the table. The other Autobots were gazing with wide optics at an abomination they’d never fully seen. Rodimus Prime looked more thoughtful, but there was a pinched stress line by his mouth that First Aid wished he could somehow soothe. There was nothing like handing his Prime an impossible problem to ruin his month.

“You know what the worst part is?” the CMO blurted at random, unable to stay quiet in the face of the Prime’s sad, strained look. “The way his head’s been wired, he can never _feel_ like us. It would hurt him. Pleasure registers as near agony. I ran several models based on his neurological circuitry, and emotional attachments have to cause him as much pain as a wound. Things like friendship or love would bodily punish him.” The Chaos Bringer’s heralds lived lives of nothing but burning hate, unless they equated getting hurt with affection.

Which might explain the way Galvatron reacted to Cyclonus, come to think of it, at least if there were anything besides mutual loathing between the two Unicronians. It wouldn’t surprise First Aid at this point if Galvatron were a sadomasochist. It would the only way he could think of for a Cybertronian to adapt to what Unicron had done to him. If there were anything of a native Cybertronian left in the Unicronian, anyway.

First Aid rebooted his visor. Then he did it again. Rodimus Prime was _smiling?_

“Well, the humans always say that love hurts,” the Autobot leader murmured, and the whole table was looking askance by now. He stood abruptly. “Excuse me, folks, I’ve gotta hit up the armory and — First Aid, I’m going to need to borrow a few tools if you don’t mind heading to Medbay ASAP to pack for me. I’ll make a list.”

The Prime surged out of the briefing room like a racer at the gate, caught up in one of his impetuous intuitive leaps. By now, the other Autobots knew the signs better than the old command crew had known the oncoming signs of one of Optimus Prime’s famous speeches. They also knew better than to try and shift Rodimus Prime’s fixated attention, as his hunches were almost forces of nature in his strength of cause. The whole room just scrambled to catch up, leaping for the orders he tossed in his wake like outfielders for the ball.

First Aid jogged toward Medbay himself, shaking his head a bit at the boomerang swing from bad news to optimism. Yeah, some days he missed Prowl’s level head. He missed the plans that made sense going in. With Rodimus Prime, things only made sense looking back at how it played out. But this wasn’t Optimus Prime versus Megatron. This was Rodimus Prime versus Galvatron. This was a whole new playing field, where Unicron had rewritten the rules.

Fortunately, everyone remembered that Hot Rod had never learned to play by the rules, much less respect whoever made them. Becoming Prime hadn’t changed that much.

Maybe the Matrix had known what it was about.


End file.
